


it's a date

by hipgrab (merrymegtargaryen)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 13:57:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16766491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/hipgrab
Summary: It takes Rey approximately half an hour to realize that they’re on a date.





	it's a date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jeeno2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/gifts).



It takes Rey approximately half an hour to realize that they’re on a date.

It had never occurred to her, not once, that those were Solo’s intentions. He had said nothing to indicate as much. Hell, he’s never indicated that he even likes her. In fact, he’s done nothing but the opposite; he’s always scowling at her and correcting her and telling her she’s wrong. That isn’t the behavior of someone who wants to take her on a date.

Except, apparently, it is.

Suddenly, it’s all coming together--his insistence on picking her up, their going to a very upscale restaurant at his offer to pay for dinner, the way he’d tactfully avoided commenting on the gusto with which she ate the entire bread basket, not even a “you’ll be too full for dinner”. Rey had assumed it was all a ploy to make her listen to him about his dumb work proposal, plying her with expensive free food (her one weakness, dammit), but now she’s starting to see that she was terribly, horribly wrong. There’s been no shop talk, no unpleasant conversations about work, just...getting along. He’s asked her about her background, where she went to college, what she likes to do in her spare time. By the time Rey finished the bread basket, she’d begun to talk and laugh openly with him. This Ben Solo is so, _so_ much more pleasant than the one she thought she knew. This Ben Solo is like a real person, someone she could actually see herself getting along with, maybe even dating.

And that’s when she realizes.

“Is this,” she asks, interrupting Solo in the middle of a sentence she hasn’t quite processed, “a date?”

Solo blinks at her. “Uh...yes?”

Rey stares at him.

“Did you...not...know that?” he asks, eyes widening.

“You never said it was a date,” she accuses, feeling a blush creep up her neck.

“I thought it was obvious!” He runs a hand through his hair. Out of the corner of her eye, Rey sees the waiter approach; one look at Solo and he turns around, deliberately refilling the water glasses at another table. “Rey, you...you really didn’t know I was asking you on a date?”

“No!” she yelps, drawing a few startled glances. “No,” she amends in a whisper. “I did not know you were asking me on a date!”

“Oh, fuck,” Solo groans, running a hand through his hair again. He really needs to stop that, because it’s somehow making Rey want to run _her_ hands through his hair. “Rey, I thought it was obvious that I’m very, very attracted to you.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t,” she says, cheeks aflame. “You never...you never said anything.”

“I thought I didn’t have to,” he says weakly. “Rey, I...I can’t stop staring at you at work.”

“You’re always scowling when you do it,” she points out.

“I defended you on the Breitling campaign.”

“Yeah, because I was right,” she mumbles.

“You were not,” he says with a poorly concealed smile.

She points an accusatory finger at him. “And you’re always doing things like that!”

“Just because I’m attracted to you doesn’t mean I’m going to think you’re right when you’re clearly wrong.” He looks so befuddled, and Rey, who has never particularly liked Solo until right at this moment, feels a sudden rush of affection for him.

“You really like me?” she asks in a much squeakier voice than she had anticipated.

Solo’s eyes widen. “Of course.”

“But _why_ ?” That’s the part she doesn’t understand--why Ben Solo, of all people, would like _her_ , of all people.

“Are you kidding?” he practically snorts. “You’re beautiful and funny and smart, and you have the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. You’re the only person who can make me smile. You are, in a word, incredible . How could I not like you?”

And Rey, whom he just called smart, can only say, “Oh.”

She didn’t know Solo-- _Ben_ \--felt this way. Is he terrible at showing it, or is she terrible at reading the signs? She’ll be so mortified if Finn and Rose knew this whole time. But surely they’d tell her if they knew Ben Solo liked her in that way? Surely they’d want to warn her before she accepted a _date_ with this man.

But is it really that bad? She’s had a good time with him tonight. More than a good time; a _great_ time. He’s been funny and polite and all around likeable. He’s been the kind of person Rey can see herself hanging out with, and maybe even going on dates with. And, sure, he’s an asshole at the office--a mild irritant at best--but outside of work, he’s been perfectly lovely.

He runs his hand through his hair again. “I’m sorry, I thought...I thought you understood it would be a date and you...but if you didn’t know...you probably don’t want to be here...I can drive you home--”

“Wait, wait, wait.” She reaches across the table, resting her hand on his. “I never said I didn’t want to go on a date with you.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “So...do you?”

Truthfully, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t _not_ want to go on a date with him. But this is all happening so suddenly. An hour ago, she found him boorish and irksome, had assumed he was only taking her out to make her listen about a proposal she had (and still has) no intention of backing. But now...now, she doesn’t find him boorish or irksome. She finds him something else entirely.

“Let’s see how the rest of this one goes,” she says with a tentative smile. “And if it goes well, I’ll let you ask me out again--but this time, you have to specify that it’s a date.”

He huffs out a laugh, shoulders sagging in relief. “Fair enough.”

She pulls back her hand, turning back to her dinner. “You have to give me warning so I can wear my matching underwear.”

Solo chokes on his wine.

  



End file.
